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EU urged to step up support to Eastern European HIV response

Tuesday, 6 August, 2013

The European Union (EU) is under pressure to review the level of support it provides to neighbouring
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union region to respond to the
HIV and
AIDS epidemic. The majority of EU funding for
HIV prevention and
treatment is earmarked for developing nations, whilst middle-income countries, such as those in the
Eastern Europe, Russia and the Central Asia region have seen a huge rise in new infections over the last decade. Although the number of people
living with HIV remains relatively low compared with other regions, the proportion of people dying of
AIDS-related causes is high. Key players in the international response to HIV and AIDS, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and
Tuberculosis (TB), are calling upon the EU to reconsider their plan of action against the three diseases, to include Eastern Europe, Russia and the Central Asia.

Between 2001 and 2011, the Ukraine and Belarus saw an increase in the number of AIDS-related deaths of 144 percent and 1,100 percent, respectively. This trend runs counter to many other regions, such as
Southern Africa, where AIDS-related deaths decreased during this period. The HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe is primarily fuelled by
injecting drug use, with the groups most vulnerable to HIV being injecting drug users,
men who have sex with men and
sex workers. Scale-up of programmes targeting these key populations is needed, but political and religious barriers and high levels of
stigma against these groups, make them hard to reach and
funding difficult to obtain.

The
Global Fund has urged the EU to consider the urgent need to finance responses to the epidemic in middle-income countries where
HIV incidence is increasing and prioritise where help is needed the most, as opposed focusing on national poverty levels.